I checked his public blogs, and he deleted both of them (destroying all the articles and discussion they contained), so I suppose this was done at his request.

As far as know, this is the first time a very active indie game sub-forum is moved to the inactive file (In all the previous cases I recall, the forums were seldom used anymore, of there was another external forum about the game to move on, or the game wasn't "indie" anymore, like TROS or Heroquest.)

It's not like there was the prerequisite of the author (or publisher's) presence in the sub-forum activity: the Heroquest sub-forum was hosted for years without any involvement from Issaries or Greg Stafford. So, if the site policy didn't change in the interim, the CNR games sub-forum could have still still worked in the same way, even without Clinton's presence. So, why the move to the inactive section? And what does it mean for the discussion about Clinton's games at the Forge?

The site policy is that a publisher of an independent game can have a forum here on request, subject to a few reasonable criteria (i.e, they actually have at least one game, a few other things described in previous threads). How does that translate to removing a forum? It's easy: just request that too.

This has been done quite a bit, for any number of reasons. In most cases of inactivity or a shift to a non-independent publishing mode, we removed a forum after discussion with the publisher, not as a unilateral or immediate consequence. That applies to Issaries and TROS, among others. Once, a publisher decided that the Forge was not a good place and had his forum removed, then changed his mind later and had it put back.

I think there has been only one contentious removal, in which I wasn't involved. The authority over the decison in such a case rests with the non-me partner, who was Clinton for most of the Forge's history and is now Vincent. There has been no instance of someone wanting his or her forum removed and us saying no, we're keeping it, and I can't imagine such a thing happening.

So there isn't any need to try to deduce some hidden reason or complex policy by comparing usage or participation across different forums. Typically, the publisher tells us to have it removed, or agrees with us when we say "it doesn't look like you're interested," or "it doesn't fit with our definition of independent any more," and that's that.

Well, posting should be disabled for all Inactive forums. If it isn't for some reason, that should be repaired soon.

There is no stricture against posting about any independent games at the Forge, and none on any games for the Actual Play forum. So any eligible discussion of TSOY in any of the forums, consistent with that forum's purpose, remains just as it was. That's the same for any game: Orkworld, TROS, HeroQuest, et cetera, all are still candidates for active discussion. "Inactive" does not mean "in the doghouse," "punished," "out of favor," or anything of the kind.

Huh, this one happened rather suddenly. I didn't even notice the inactivation, as there was no posts about it or anything.

I believe that it would not be off-topic for anybody to offer an explanation or a link to one, should somebody know what got to Clinton. I guess I could ask him myself, but not everybody can, and for all I know he doesn't want email, either. If this is some strange hermitage thing it's probably best if we actually knew to not pester Clinton about it, I imagine.

Guys, I do not know why the forum is closed. That is a private publisher decision. It's not my business, and I really have no idea how it could be any of yours. I am getting a vibe, possibly it's just my imagination, that people are posting here in hopes of receiving some kind of insider, behind-the-scenes story. I don't have one. As is usual for publisher-driven forum closures, I didn't even know about it until the same time you did.

Nor do I think it's a good idea to make a call for one, not because I think the information is or isn't appropriate, but because it's going to become a node for gossip. Eero, you said something that's completely correct: if you want to know something about what a person did or wanted, then ask that person. It's pretty straightforward.

Well, I already did write Clinton about it, perhaps he'll tell me what's going on with him; if it's something he wants to share publicly, I'll let you know here. And I agree that rumors are hardly appropriate. I was more thinking along the lines of somebody having seen Clinton explain this somewhere, or something like that. I don't read the blogosphere nearly as much as many others do, so I was thinking that with everybody acting so blase, perhaps Clinton's explained himself somewhere else and I just missed it. I am a bit worried with him taking such drastic steps as irrevocably deleting blogs and inactivating a forum he doesn't frequent that much himself - I'm simply worried that something bad has happened to him.

Anyway, perhaps Clinton'll explain this in email, or says a couple of words around here himself. I imagine that I'm not exactly alone in wanting a little closure if this marks off some kind of extended CRN gaming lent. There are plenty of issues others need to solve without Clinton, after all - one such impacting the Forge is whether Ron & Vincent would be amiable to starting a new TSoY forum here on the model of the old HeroQuest forum, to faciliate the kind of discussions we've had on the game on the CRN forum. But that's also the exact kind of question that needs to be resolved only after we get some sense of the reasons behind Clinton's virtual disappearance - if his reason for inactivating his forum was (to coin an example) that he wanted us to stop discussing his games, for example, then going around him like that would be rude.

I guess what I'm saying is that Clinton's simply a too important person for me to just have him up and disappear one day without warning. In that I disagree with Ron - I've had some business with the man and am looking forward to common projects in the future, so of course it's my business to at least be aware of it if he's been diagnosed with atavism or something. I certainly did write him to ask what is wrong, but only after spending some time affirming that he hasn't already written some public declaration somewhere about how he hates the public internet and wants everybody to act like he doesn't exist, or something like that.

Heya, guys -- Eero -- give the man some room and air. I think things like the fate of TSOY and a discussion forum for such, etc. should become more-or-less clear if you just sit back and give them time to sort out and reveal themselves instead of rushing about wondering and worrying at the drop of a hat. Two weeks from now, if it is still utterly quiet, sure, then start to ask a few questions to see what's up. Otherwise, quiet patience is the best policy.

Yeah, well, as they say - whatever. Just about the only thing I could write about at this juncture would be to try to justify why I feel entitled to be worried about Clinton, and that's not really something I need to justify to anybody. Let's wait and see if he's going to explain himself post facto. The fact that he apparently didn't explain beforehand in any way makes me fear that this is some kind of awful emergency or that Clinton's not going to explain at all, but waiting is a simple cure to that kind of uncertainty. I just hope he didn't overhaul his email addresses while at it.

OK, I've traded a couple of emails with Clinton, and am now more aware of what's going on. Clinton wrote a short explanation at his company website, too, which answers most of our questions. As far as I can see into another human heart it just seems like Clinton's taking a break from the hobby of publishing; he just went to it with unusually great rigour, locking his Forge account as well. Admirable determination if nothing else, that. I hope that with time he'll regain a harmonic balance between his various hobbies and other life goals.

Us Solar System musketeers of course want to know what to do about the sudden lack of a forum to have our most learned discourse upon, which we also discussed with Clinton: he says that he's in favor of having somebody else (me, in the context of our correspondence) take responsibility for the Forge subforum. I PMed about it to Ron and Vincent, I'm sure they'll let us know what they think about it. Forge is a developing entity, so it's not a given that the kind of forum we made of the CRN one is necessary here nowadays, after all.